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Ultimate Spider-Man #4 (December 2000)
Bendis Bagley Thibert Panosian

Ultimate #4 the plot: Young Peter Parker, now fully aware of his unique spider abilities and a successful pro-wrestler, is kicked out of the wrestling league and leaves home only to return later to find his Uncle Ben dead and the thief he could have stopped earlier is the murderer. Sound familiar?

the review: If you've read my review of Ultimate Spider-Man #1, then you know just how much I like this series. The writing thus far has been updated, yet true to the original issues, incorporating elements from the originals in much better fashion than the so-called "Chapter One". This issue is no exception. So the writing is top notch then, so why bother writing a review in the first place? Well, where the writing matches the earlier issues, sadly the artwork does not. But we'll get to that a little later.

In terms of the progression of things we're given quite a lot this issue. The accident that turns Osborn into the Green Goblin has happened and in the process we've also gotten the origin of Dr. Octopus. We meet the burglar again for the first time, although the store owner seemed a bit out of place when he was shouting at Peter, considering that he a man twice Peter's size was not able to stop the burglar. And finally we're given a glimpse of the myserious new Green Goblin, who, according to rumor is being renamed the Goblin. I'm curious as to how they'll balance the double identity thing for Osborn, if they choose to go in that direction.

Right, now that we're through talking about the story, let's go on to the visuals. The team of Bagley and Thibert were unbelievable in the first two issues. The art started to get a little sketchy in the third issue, but I assumed that it was a temporary thing, and it didn't take much away from the story. In this issue it does, completely. Mark Bagley still does an excellent job with the visuals. He still is doing some of the best work of his work career here. My quibbles lie with the inkers, namely Art Thibert and Dan Panosian. Thibert's inks have been solid so far, so the blame lies on Panosian.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen his work elsewhere and I like it, but for some reason his inks lessen the quality of the art here. Look at page 26 particularly. Peter and Uncle Ben's visuals suffer terribly there, and I still don't get the need for all of those little lines on Peter's face in the second panel. Once again, I'm not bashing Panosian personally as I've liked his work elsewhere, but I think it's just not right for Bagley's pencils here.

So, we're left with an odd trade off here. On one side we have excellent writing, but sketchy artwork. Well, at least it's not both like in a certain "other" Spider-Man revamp series. *ahem*

I'm going to give Ultimate Spider-Man a **1/2 out of *****

 

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